Wednesday, March 19, 2008

For some reason, I keep thinking of what a Georgian cab driver told me about Abkhazia a week or so ago: he'd do anything to keep it as part of Georgia, even if it meant he'd have to elect Vladimir Zhirinovsky as Georgia's president for a whole year!

The policeman from Ukraine was identified as 25-year old Ihor Kynal, deployed to Kosovo last years as part of a special police unit. He died of injuries suffered from a hand grenade thrown by a protester during Monday's clashes -- the worst violence in Kosovo since it declared independence from Serbia a month ago.

"He basically bled to death," said Larry Wilson, the top U.N. police official in Kosovo. "Because of the gunfire it took us almost two and a half hours to evacuate him."